JPL Comet Shoemaker-Levy Educators Guide

Ulysses

The Ulysses spacecraft was designed for solar study and used a
gravity assist from flying close to Jupiter to change its
inclination (the tilt of its path relative to the plane of the
planets) so it can fly over the poles of the Sun. In July 1994 it
will be about 378 million km south of the plane of the planets
(the ecliptic) and able to "look" over the south pole of Jupiter
directly at the impact sites. Unfortunately, Ulysses has no camera
as a part of its instrument complement. It does have an extremely
sensitive receiver of radio frequency signals from 1 to 1000 kHz
(kilohertz, or kilocycles in older terminology) called URAP
(Unified Radio and Plasma wave experiment). URAP may be able to
detect thermal radiation from the impact fireballs once they rise
sufficiently high above interference from the Jovian ionosphere
(upper atmosphere) and to measure a precise time history of their
rapid cooling.

This was exerpted from the JPL Shoemaker-Levy Educators Guide.
To see the
entire guide, click here.